


Black ▼ Pygma

by razielim



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Everyone is Roughly In Their Twenties, Except Lotor who's probably 31-33, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 01:22:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14297673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/razielim/pseuds/razielim
Summary: Hunk's chances of success are much lower without Pidge. Everything he knew about AI he learned from her. But she'd stormed off, and now it's just him, sitting in his basement, tinkering... He's really more of an engineer and an inventor than a designer or a logician. The one thing he does know, though, is how to love, and he'll be damned if he doesn't figure out a way to teach love to a machine.When Project Shiro comes online, though, it's one close call after another. Between Mr. Sincline sniffing around on behalf of the US government, Keith being way more interested in Shiro than anyone has any right to be, and Pidge wanting to make up and resume work, Hunk's going to end up with grey hair by his next birthday.Please keep in mind that Hunk and Shiro are the main characters and only their romances are the ones central to the story.





	1. Synthesis Ongoing

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to be original fiction. Years have gone by since I first scribbled this concept down, however, and I'm still no closer to writing it. It doesn't fit into my Flaer original universe, it's too long for a one shot short story, I'm too busy during NaNoWriMo with Smutmas, etc. Always some other writing gets in the way.
> 
> The characters are close enough to the Voltron cast that I've decided to adapt it to their quirks and personalities, add a few more characters to round the cast out, and remove the elements that wouldn't work with it. Maybe someday this will become something like a "first draft" to the original story I wanted to tell, but I'm putting all my love and heart into this fandom draft as if it's the only one that will ever exist.
> 
> I hope you enjoy.

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-16 18:26:47,460 DEBUG QUERY check_status` **
> 
> **`2017-05-16 18:26:47,512 DEBUG ProjKuron.ContextSynthesis Day 27 Status: Synthesis Ongoing` **
> 
> **`...` **

Hunk loved working with his hands.

That was how he'd always thought of himself.

If Project Kuron needed reskinning because the previous material was prone to tearing, he'd do it without even noticing that he'd started. Picking up on a bug in the nervous system wasn't frustrating, it was a possibility for improvement. A failed test meant a challenge. It was the AI part of things that he didn't like to touch. Could he maybe, sort of, kinda, _slowly_ pick his way through a bit of code? Yeah, sure. Was it better to leave that stuff to the person that could code in her sleep, though? Absolutely.

But Pidge was gone. 

She'd stormed off four months ago over philosophical differences and still refused to talk to him. Last he'd heard from Allura, she was now working on her own AI project. One that would be limited to existing on a stationary server, but would probably turn out way more rational and perfect than Project Kuron.

_Philosophical differences._

That was a euphemistic way of saying Pidge didn't want Hunk teaching her baby "that sappy crap."

Hunk sighed and sat back in his rolling chair, spinning slightly. 

If that's how she felt about _Shakespeare_ , he really hoped she never asked him what else he'd ended up transferring into PK's knowledge-base since she'd left.

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-19 14:32:56,121 DEBUG QUERY check_status` **
> 
> **`2017-05-19 14:32:56,159 DEBUG ProjKuron.ContextSynthesis Day 31 Status: Synthesis Ongoing` **
> 
> **`...` **

There was little for him left to do.

He'd fussed over PK's teeth yesterday. The day before that, he'd given him a whole new haircut. For a second this morning, it had looked like the cyborg heart might be going into arrest and the diagnostic tools had gone all screwy. Hunk had stood around looking like a dumbass, holding a glorified jumper cable and watching PK's chest rise and fall. When he was sure PK was going to continue breathing normally, he'd set down the cable and worked on fixing the diagnostic tools.

PK's status hadn't yet switched to "Synthesis Resolving" so after lunch, he transferred some essays he'd found about the dangers of something called high modernism.  _"Something something, building utopias often over-relies on logic and reason and undervalues the simple, beautiful things humans need to thrive."_  It sounded like an important thing for PK to be aware of. Especially if Pidge's AI went all _Age of Ultron_.

At the core, that's what Pidge had fundamentally misunderstood about this project.

Hunk didn't start this all and invite her to join because he wanted to build an AI. He wanted to build a complex system that could love and  _feel_. What was the point of a cyborg who could only reason, solve puzzles, and tell people how to live their lives? It would be way cooler to have a buddy that could laugh with you and say the right or wrong thing when you're down. For that, you needed sappy crap. You needed critical crap. You needed every mundane and intellectual and contradictory thing you could get your hands on.

Pidge's vision for an AI could live in a box and be happy. Hunk's would be distraught. 

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-19 23:17:22,806 DEBUG MESSAGE Status Change Pending` **
> 
> **`2017-05-19 23:17:22,841 DEBUG ProjKuron.ContextSynthesis Day 31 Status: Synthesis Resolving` **
> 
> **`...` **

Hunk had fallen asleep with his face in a volume of _The Antichrist_. It was just one of the things he'd fed PK over the last few months but hadn't previously read himself. He'd also added every classic novel that seemed to approach the human condition, the books _about_ those books, the books criticizing the _existence_ of classics entirely, a good load of fanfiction, every modern bestseller book available for digital download, and every favorite movie and show that he and Lance had ever watched. Along with random news articles, essays about how reading news was bad for you, and essays about why staying informed daily was important. Music, photos, funny cat videos — everything that Hunk imagined a machine would need to not only understand the world of humans but to also perceive it both critically and compassionately.

Most importantly, he'd included the footage of how he'd worked on PK. And Pidge. The joy, the frustration, and the love that went into this project were all on display for the knowledge compiler. 

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 05:55:18,601 DEBUG MESSAGE Status Change Pending` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 05:55:18,665 DEBUG ProjKuron.ContextSynthesis Day 32 Status: Online...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 05:55:18,665 DEBUG MESSAGE Knowledge-base compilation shut down. Concurrent synthesis now live.` **
> 
> **`...` **

"That feels nice," Hunk mumbled into Nietzsche's soggy pages.

Someone laughed. They stopped. A gasp. A louder gasp.

The hand in Hunk's hair disappeared with a jerk.

Hunk shot up from the couch.

Seven hundred and thirteen pounds of synthetic cyborg stood over him with with his fingertips to his own mouth, wide eyes watching Hunk.

Hunk took a step away. "PK?"

PK lowered his hand, and slowly, frowning at the ceiling, carefully sounded out, "Shiro, actually." He grinned, looking very pleased with himself. "Hello, Hunk."


	2. Concurrent Synthesis

Shiro's first thought in life was that Pidge was right. It was indeed strange that _Romeo and Juliet_  was held up as a great romance to refer to when talking of all great romances. They were nothing more than a couple of kids entangled in a tragic lack of wisdom. And yet, he supposed everyone was just a tragic kid, forced into making decisions and reacting with all the wisdom they could muster, which was often not enough. In its essence, the play captured something undeniably true and universal. Still, it seemed like  _Romeo and Juliet_ had no business being put up on any sort of romantic pedestal, if its _real_ claim to fame was an example of compelling, tragic _irony_. The romance was just its shiny packaging.

Not that he was any sort of expert. Shiro had only read about these things, and frankly, his conclusions were all still a little muddled. What were important values to uphold? What were the things that were beautiful and true, but were better left un-idolized?

He'd have to do more thinking.

And maybe reading.

Then Shiro noticed the ceiling and realized that he'd never seen a ceiling before. It was white, a little cracked and stained to his left. Why was it cracked and stained? He didn't know. Hunk would know. Shiro sat up and was about to look around when he noticed the overwhelming sensation of _sitting_. He had made the choice to sit and _now he sat_. Shiro looked down at himself. He was a person. He had a body. He could string words and streams of thoughts together. He was a he, and he was narrating his own sensations and interpretations just as surely as Shakespeare had one day narrated _Romeo and Juliet_. 

Then Shiro decided to lie down and close his eyes.

A little while later, he opened his eyes again and looked around the room, trying very hard not to freak out.

There were the workbenches, the many servers, half the room hidden from view by metal closets that held Hunk's supplies and tools, and on a couch, drooling into a book, was Hunk himself. His creator. His... father? No. Daddy? _Definitely_  no. His god? ...........perhaps, in a strictly technical sense, but no. That man was Hunk, and Shiro would decide how to define their relationship later. Likely none of the human languages had a word for something their species never experienced.

It was cool in the room, despite all the humming, whirring machinery.

Shiro sat up with a shiver. He then tried hard not to have an existential crisis about standing up for the first time, finding his balance for the first time, and slowly shuffling across the room to a hoodie he'd seen. It was strange moving through the room. He'd seen hundreds of hours of footage of Pidge and Hunk moving through the room but all from a stationary camera. Now the world glided past him, and nothing had prepared him for that visual phenomenon. Things grew larger as he approached them, and swam off the edge of his sight as he moved away.

He shuddered and then moaned as he pulled on the hoodie and its cold zipper stung his body. Oh. That was his voice. 

"Voice," Shiro said and flinched. Hunk snorted on the couch.

He tried again, much more quietly, and smiled. That was his voice.

Shiro moved over to Hunk's sleeping form, rubbing his hands over the skin of his own bare torso, down his legs, over his hips, into the small of his back. He stopped and stretched, reaching up, over, up again, back. He overbalanced and just barely managed to keep from falling into the wall with full force. When he pushed himself away, he found huge dents in the wall in the shape of his head, hand, shoulder, hip, and knee. And then he realized those parts of his body _hurt_ and he stumbled away from the wall in shock, almost falling over again.

 _Pain_. What a concept. What a good reason to not fall into anything ever again.

He looked over his body and released the breath he'd been holding. Nothing was broken. Not even a little torn. Good.

He continued walking towards Hunk, watching his feet, afraid they would fail him.

The page beneath Hunk's mouth was becoming a swollen, rippled mess. Shiro recognized the book.

He reached out to touch Hunk's hair.

Soft.

With his other hand, Shiro reached into his own hair. Also soft. Very.

He stood in thrall to the sensations as the hair swept past, settled against, smoothed across his skin. Associations bloomed suddenly and Shiro winced, confused and startled. _"Her dark hair was scattered and its beauty stung his eyes like smoke and ate into his heart."_  — _"O fleece, that down the neck waves to the nape!_ _O curls! O perfume nonchalant and rare!_ _O ecstasy! To fill this alcove shape w_ _ith memories that in these tresses sleep-"_

Shiro hit himself in the forehead. "Stop that."

For a while he just stood there, glaring at the back of the couch, still hunched over with one hand in Hunk's hair, and focusing with all his will on the sting in his fingers and face. Remembering information from the knowledge-base compiler was unsettling. Somewhere in his peripheral consciousness, _more_ relevant literature about hair prodded at him, eager to be acknowledged, but he spitefully ignored it. 

How to even begin coming to terms with his ready-made knowledge?

He'd had no choice in choosing it, he'd had no input in synthesizing it. All connections and associations simply _existed_. Too many of them.

An odd heat grew in his head and he wasn't sure if it was the slap or the thinking that was responsible for it.

Hunk stirred.

Shiro took a deep breath and resumed his exploration of the texture of Hunk's hair, tangling his fingers into it, running his nails across the bandanna...

"That feels nice," Hunk mumbled into Nietzsche's soggy pages.

Shiro laughed. The sound shocked him and he gasped, and the gasp came out as unexpectedly as the laugh so he gasped again, jerking up and feeling his mouth with his fingers. How strange. How strange that, even being a machine, he couldn't predict what he was about to do and instead had to be so surprised by it. Like a human? Perhaps.

Hunk jumped off the couch.

Shiro watched him stumble over his blanket, right himself, and bring his hands defensively into a pseudo-martial arts position. All of his motions, even the awkward ones, were fast, fluid. Hunk's brain must have acknowledged in split seconds the blanket that had wound itself around his feet, what could happen, and how to avoid disaster, all from past experience with blankets. The human body moved with an easy assurance and knowledge, even while startled and half asleep.

Hunk took a step away. "PK?"

Recalling many movies and dialogues at once in a rushing blur, Shiro chose his words and his volume and said, "Shiro, actually." He grinned, very pleased with himself. "Hello, Hunk."

Hunk rubbed his eyes. "Oh, god, uh- How'd you come up with that name?"

Shiro pulled at his hair, the forelock Hunk had cut and dyed on Wednesday. In some alcove of his mind flickered the shows that Lance had talked Hunk into adding to his knowledge. "Anime."

Hunk stared, frowning. He tried to say something a few times.

Then he burst out laughing. He held out a hand, like for an apology, "For the record, that's all Lance's fault."

Shiro smiled. "You did the hair."

"Err... yeah. Sorry. I was antsy. We can cut it to something else."

Shiro put his hands in his pockets.

_Snap-rrrrrrrrrip._

Hunk stared at the hoodie. Shiro looked down in horror.

"I'm sorry," Shiro rushed to say and almost missed Hunk saying, "Don't worry about it."

Hunk coughed. "I'm serious. Don't worry about it. I loaded some muscle memory to your knowledge-base from all the simulations and diagnostics I ran on your limbs while constructing them, but it'll be a while before you figure out your strength."

_"Oh, boy. You're probably going to tear this house apart once you come online. Like a giant toddler. Or like those superhero movies where someone gets super-strength."_

Shiro stared blankly for a moment, trying to understand how Hunk had spoken so clearly without moving his mouth.

No. 

Wait.

A memory.

It came up on its own when relevant, and not a moment sooner.

Shiro shook his head, the heat in his skull turning to a dull ache. "I'm still sorry," he said. "And about the wall."

"The wall?" Hunk looked around. It took him too long to finally notice where the dents were. "Oh. Yeah. We'll patch that up when you figure out how to do things carefully."

There was a silence and Shiro finally took his hands out of the holes he'd ripped in the hoodie. How did he even manage to put it on in one piece?

"So, uh... you want that haircut? I still have some brown dye too," Hunk asked, and Shiro noticed him backing away a couple inches. Note to self — always handle humans with extreme care. Not that he wanted to damage any more walls either. Or keep accruing aches and pains.

"Actually the haircut is fine. It's the, uh... lack of a dick that's bothering me."

Together, they both looked down to Shiro's naked crotch, smooth as a Ken doll. 

"Really, _really_ bothering me."


	3. Before Shakespeare

There must have been something before Shakespeare. 

He'd spouted nonsense about romance and irony while already knowing that his name was Shiro. The context synthesis wouldn't have been able to come up with that; that application's only purpose was to map knowledge into his brain by weaving associations. So that if, upon waking, he was asked a question about anime, he'd "recall" examples of it, be able to compare it to other forms of cartoons, tell you where the content originated from, explain how animated humans behaved differently from real life humans, and, if pressed, be able to make an educated guess about the purpose of these differences and reply whether or not he "liked" anime. But all of that guessing, supposing, and preferring wasn't part of the context synthesis. It was part of the concurrent synthesis application that his brain was now executing.

So how had he known is name was Shiro if no one told him, and no one had prompted him to pick one that was different from "PK"? How much of the concurrent synthesis was hidden from his consciousness, and how did it have information on how much he would like the name "Shiro" if he never had a chance to _think_  first?

"-and so it was just a hell of a lot of nerve endings and I guess, ultimately, without a vote of confidence, with Pidge breathing down my neck about it, I was scared that I'd fry your brain even if I did everything right, and that's the story of why you don't have a dick," Hunk finished ranting and took in a huge gulp of air.

Shiro frowned at him, his head a mess of pain, and Hunk groaned, burying his head in his arms on the workbench. 

"I know, I _know_ that's a stupid reason. God, I feel so stupid. I'd just kind of gotten used to ignoring your dickless crotch. I always tell myself, I say, _'Hunk! Fear is the death of invention!'_  So I knew it was wrong. And I should have gone ahead and done the dick after Pidge left."

Shiro sighed and dangled his feet. "So is it even possible to do it now?" His heel hit one of the metal beams of his cot and dented it. Shiro hissed, bringing his foot up into his hands.

"Yeah!" Hunk perked up. "No, I mean, totally. I made you with the full expectation that I might need to perform various surgeries later. It's just that this would be like a three month long surgery unless I prepare everything first. The prototypes, the testing, the diagnostics, and of course the actual sculpting. You know, all the functionality of swelling and tightening. It's doable, it's just not exactly straightforward."

Shiro sighed. Hunk hadn't exactly taught him the details of his mechanics, but he knew from the video logs that his overall construction took six years, three of them with Pidge helping out. He also knew from various essays that genitals and sexual function were still poorly understood by humans. Even with Hunk's genius and fearless trial-and-error approach, the construction of his genitals would take forever. Longer than Hunk was estimating, unless he got really lucky.

"That's fine," he said. "Just make it's as good as you made everything else."

"Thanks for understanding, buddy," Hunk said, smiling. "I really do feel bad that I let that slip through the cracks."

Shiro shrugged. "What am I going to do in the meantime?"    

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:35:54,509 ProjKuron.ConcurrentSynthesis Errors: 0, Warnings: 0, Messages: 0` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:35:54,509 ProjKuron.ConcurrentSynthesis Errors: 0, Warnings: 0, Messages: 0`**
> 
> **`...` **

Shiro sat watching the street over the back of the couch. Hunk had given him homework — just dick around and do stuff. Watch people, figure out the remote control, figure out showers and cooking and sitting down without breaking anything. Holler if you need anything. Don't leave the house just yet.

Shiro couldn't argue with that. He'd taken a shower. He'd gotten dressed, with pants this time. Doing just those two tasks without breaking or ripping anything was difficult enough that now he was vegging on the couch, watching the neighbor across the street mow his lawn. Kids were out riding bikes and drawing with chalk. The world outside was experiencing a slow, lazy Saturday morning.

A girl on a bike appeared from around some bushes. She turned up Hunk's driveway.

Shiro sat up, alarmed.

That was Pidge.

He wanted to call out to Hunk but his mouth didn't respond. What if Pidge heard him and asked Hunk who he was? Should he hide? Just walk quietly towards the basement door? 

Stuck in place with fear and indecision, he watched with horror as Pidge walked up to the front door, and, without knocking, let herself in.

She stopped and stared at him.

"Hello?"

Shiro tried for a smile. "Uh, hi."

"Who are you?" Pidge asked, looking around the living room.

"I'm Shiro. Who are you?"

Pidge's frown deepened. "I'm Pidge. Hunk's friend. What are you doing here?"

Very carefully, Shiro got off the couch to stall for time. "I'm uh..." he searched his brain desperately. "I'm helping Hunk with PK."

Good answer.

Warming up to the idea of trying his hand at this, Shiro rubbed his hands on his pants and continued, "Yeah, he wanted someone familiar with literature to take a look at PK's knowledge-base and make some suggestions, edits. That sort of thing. Lance's anime suggestions weren't exactly what Hunk had in mind. I'll go get him. He's working on PK's dick right now. I think he said something about you not wanting to see that."

"Ew, gross." Pidge frowned. "Yeah, no thanks."

And, head spinning with pride and disbelief, Shiro carefully made his way downstairs, trying to neither stomp nor shuffle.

Hunk was unraveling wire that he had accidentally invented a few years ago. When heated, it would stretch out to make the fine wiring of Shiro's nerves.

"Pidge is here," Shiro said in a voice so high that he took a physical step back, surprised at himself.

Hunk looked up from the wire. "What do you mean, 'Pidge is here'? Pidge can't be here. Pidge hasn't talked to me in months."

"Well, she's right upstairs," Shiro explained, voice climbing higher. "She walked right in and asked me who I was, and I said Shiro, and she didn't recognize me with the recent changes you made to my hair and face so then I said I'm helping you with teaching PK literature." 

He was shaking by now, bouncing in place, hands restlessly waving around. He brought them under control into clenched fists. It was getting hard to breathe.

"Shit! I don't want people to know I've got a live cyborg yet. Shit, shit, shit-" Hunk jumped up and started piling clothes and pillows onto the cot that Shiro had been built on. "Is she coming downstairs?"

"No, I said you're working on my dick and that she shouldn't come if she doesn't want to see anything."

"Smart! Very smart." Hunk paused his actions to peer at Shiro. "The lying? Wow. I'm impressed. On your first day, like, three good, believable lies? Shit."

"Hunk, upstairs."

"Yeah, right." Hunk threw a blanket over his makeshift PK dummy. "You stay here until you calm down. I'll say you're cleaning up after me. Breathe, PK-er, Shiro. Breathe. Deep and slow. It'll cool your systems and calm you."

Shaking violently, head spinning, Shiro toppled to the couch as carefully as his numb hands could manage, and tried to breathe against an uncooperative ribcage.  

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:44:24,256 ProjKuron.ConcurrentSynthesis Errors: 0, Warnings: 1, Messages: 1` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:44:24,256 DEBUG WARNING Air flow low; overheating possible; advise to clear airways, breathe slow & deep` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:44:24,256 DEBUG MESSAGE Elevated emotional state detected` **
> 
> **`...` **

"H-hey, Pidge. What's up?"

Pidge had her elbows on the kitchen's island and was staring glumly at the microwave.

"I didn't realize you'd find a replacement for me," she said, not looking at him.

"Who, Shiro?" Hunk laughed. "That guy doesn't really know much about AI. Just some basics he's picked up on." 

"Yeah, he's still working on PK, though."

"Yeah, well." Hunk trailed off and cleared his throat, forcing himself to approach. Pidge wasn't easy to deal with when she was in a mood. "I heard you had your own AI now. RD? DR?"

"Rover Drone. But I just call it Rover."

"Cool." Hunk leaned against a counter.

An awkward silence stretched out.

"It's a total bust, alright?" Pidge finally shouted, still glaring at the innocent microwave, and Hunk jumped.

"W-what's a bust?"

"Rover," she ground out through clenched teeth. "You were right. It sits around and learns things, but when I try to talk to it, it doesn't want to. It doesn't really _want_ to do anything. When it first booted two weeks ago, it would play video games with me and talk about them, analyzing and comparing them, but it never laughed or made jokes, even though it understands what jokes are. And then it just got bored of everything and stopped talking and then stopped playing and now it sits there and just downloads information."

Hunk waited for her to continue, and when she didn't, he asked, "S-so you just let... an AI... that doesn't like to socialize... dick around on the internet without supervision?"

Pidge rolled her eyes. "I'm not stupid, Hunk. I've configured its access to only be incoming. Any searches have to be typed in by hand on the keyboard by me or Allura."

"S-so you're letting an AI think of you as his necessary drones?" Hunk asked and pitched his voice to his best Colossus impression, " _'After reviewing all personnel files, I have selected you to serve, as long as you cooperate, as my link to your species.'_ Come on, Pidge, we watched that movie together. There's a reason I wanted to teach PK empathy and love and gave him a body that can feel pain and have panic attacks. Does Rover watch you and Allura get undressed first before he lets you go sleep together? Because you know how that movie ends."

Pidge was finally looking at him. Glaring, more like. "Are you done?"

"Yeah, I'm done. I think I've made my point."

Pidge sniffed. "I don't want to shut it down. I know I should. But I don't want to. I keep worrying about what will happen if it outsmarts my protocols. It started off with requesting rather innocent searches, but it's been making them more technical lately. Plus it gets irritated when we hesitate. So I need to shut it off before it learns more than it already knows about networks."

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to rub salt on the wound."

"Well, you did."

"Sorry."

Another silence stretched out and he could hear Pidge kicking the floor.

"Do you," she began, "do you think I could come work with you again? After I shut Rover off?"

Hunk pursed his lips and took a deep breath. "To be honest. To be perfectly honest, I have to say no. I want to say yes, and maybe we could work on another project some time, but I'm happy with PK's AI, and even if you're on the same page about his humanist education now... I still think we'll be butting heads too much."

Anger and resentment flickered across Pidge's face. She wasn't very big on hiding those sorts of things. "Can I ask you another favor?"

"Er... you can _ask_."

"Can you... Can you help me shut Rover off?" The fight drained from her shoulders. "I'm scared to be direct about it. Too many evil AI movies. I know it's not likely, it's too young, but those _what ifs_ , you know?"

"Oh!" Hunk finally relaxed. "Yeah, sure. What did you have in mind?"

"I don't know, I was hoping you'd have an idea."

Hunk hummed. "You could... say I'm coming over to take a look at him so we can build him a body? That might get him to ease up on questionable searches too, if he thinks he'll soon be able to make them himself so long as he behaves. And then I'll just casually unplug him during my inspection of his hardware. You'll have to show me beforehand though, exactly what it would take. I don't know your setup."

"Oh, thank god," Pidge said, drooping against the counter. "That sounds perfect."

"Ok, but like... if you told him we're not on good terms, don't make it sound like I agreed very easily."

"Right. That could turn sour. Do you have some paper? I'll draw you a diagram of my place. And while we're on the subject of suspicious behavior, have you recently met a Mr. Sincline?"   

> **`...` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:56:25,745 ProjKuron.ConcurrentSynthesis Errors: 0, Warnings: 0, Messages: 1` **
> 
> **`2017-05-20 11:56:25,745 DEBUG MESSAGE Emotional state stabilized` **
> 
> **`...` **

There must have been something before Shakespeare. 

What sort of connections were happening in Shiro's brain that he was not even consciously aware of?

He tried to connect all the schema Hunk had drawn while designing Shiro's brain and connect them to how he was feeling, pinpoint where his name came from. He knew that his stream of consciousness was middleware, the buffer between his existence in the outside world and the complex processes that governed his behavior, recorded knowledge, and performed learning. Somewhere out of those deep, obscure processes came the signals for panic, for shaking, for "Shiro." How could something that could be described in a diagram translate to how _sick_ he'd felt while anxious? Poetry sprung up again, unbidden. _"All our hearts were the mansions of distress, And no one laughed and none seemed free from care."_

"Stop that," Shiro said to himself, remembering just in time to not hit his own forehead again.

He sat up, feeling better.

Just then, Hunk opened the door above and came thudding down the stairs.

"I'm here for some paper," he panted. "And if you're better now, you might want to come upstairs. According to Pidge, you and I might have a big fucking problem."


End file.
